{"id":1166,"date":"2011-04-14T21:13:55","date_gmt":"2011-04-15T03:13:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=1166"},"modified":"2011-04-14T21:13:55","modified_gmt":"2011-04-15T03:13:55","slug":"what-i-can-and-cant-talk-about","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=1166","title":{"rendered":"What I can (and can’t) talk about"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the frustrating things to all of us (except those who really REALLY don’t want to know more than is in the books as they come out) is that even when I know something, I may not be able to talk about it.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I know that, because I get questions here, and in email, about things I just can’t talk about.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 So here’s a quick and dirty guide to what sorts of questions I’m likely to be able to answer (or not.)\u00a0 It’s quick and dirty and won’t cover everything but it may cover some things you’ve wondered about.<\/p>\n

General background and cultural things which are on the Paksworld website<\/a>: I can talk about those, though I’d appreciate it if you’d look there first.\u00a0\u00a0 Events in the background that will stay in the background, legends and myths underlying the story-world…those I can talk about.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I can talk about animals that have already appeared in the books, or places, and (sometimes) the backstory of characters.\u00a0\u00a0 I can talk about motivation (the power source of story) in books that are already published.<\/p>\n

What I can’t talk about are things like “Will we see X do Y?”\u00a0\u00a0 well…that’s part of a future story, and as such should not be revealed until the right time, which is in the book it’s in.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (If the book is still being written, then I may not know…so it’s “Maybe…”\u00a0 Which is not being coy, but just flat not knowing.) \u00a0 So nothing about what a character will do,\u00a0 or may end up, or might become, or what will happen. \u00a0 I know some…I don’t know some…and telling you any would a) be spoilers and b) would unbalance your reading of the book when it’s done. \u00a0 Because you can’t help building story on your own, while waiting for a book to come out, and the more you know, the more committed you become to your story–and the less free you are to read the story that’s written.<\/p>\n

This is because good readers are in partnership with writers–are part of the creative process by putting in their unique imaginative reading of the cues the writer puts down.\u00a0\u00a0 So no two of you, told that Paks is tall, yellow-haired, gray eyed, strong…will see in your mind the same face, the same body.\u00a0\u00a0 You would, I hope, not gift her with curly red hair, but if you did, I couldn’t stop you.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The same is true of every other detail.\u00a0\u00a0 For some of you, as you read, “sib” is a coffee-like drink; for others it’s an herbal drink; for others it’s whatever suits their fancy.<\/p>\n

“Things” are trivial in this game, but feelings, motivations, relationships–these are the real powder-kegs when it comes to blending the writer’s story with the reader’s reading….and it only works (in my opinion) when the reader has all the clues to work from.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Given a situation, and an interesting character, you will naturally take off on your own speculations…and if you’re wrong (wrong being defined as “you took the middle fork; I took the left one” not<\/em> as “absolutely wrong\/stupid\/bad) then when you read the book you’ll have a little more trouble seeing why I took the left one.\u00a0\u00a0 You will not see some of the cues.<\/p>\n

So I hope this helps a bit.\u00a0 Lots of the background material is on the website; some isn’t, and feel free to ask even if it is over there.\u00a0\u00a0 Background, backstory, craft stuff…but not the stuff in the next book or the next.<\/p>\n

Oh, and for anyone who hasn’t yet noticed, The Hobbit<\/em> filming has started and there’s a sort of introductory video up at TheOneRing.net.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I watched it today.\u00a0 There was squeeing and OMG-yes-ing and want-it-NOW-ing from this fangirl.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the frustrating things to all of us (except those who really REALLY don’t want to know more than is in the books as they come out) is that even when I know something, I may not be able to talk about it.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I know that, because I get questions here, and in email, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[107],"class_list":["post-1166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-writing-life","tag-the-writing-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1166"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1166"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1167,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1166\/revisions\/1167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}